U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Procurement, M/OP/E, Washington, D.C. 20523-1435

R -- SOCIAL SECTOR RESTRUCTURING PROGRAM SOL USAID/KIEV RFP 97-01 DUE 071797 POC Contact Point: Michele Varnhagen, Project Officer, USAID/Kiev, Tel: 380-44-462-5678; Fax: 380-44-462-5834 or Roy Plucknett, Contracting Officer, USAID/Washington, Tel: 703-875-1907; Fax: 703-875-1243. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is issuing Request for Proposal (RFP) No. USAID/Kiev 97-01. This RFP is to provide technical assistance to the Government of Ukraine (GOU) to improve their housing subsidy program, create a social benefit information and monitoring system, develop a program of social assistance for low income families, and restructure a variety of other social sector programs. Restructuring Ukraine's social sectors is essential to maintaining its fiscal stability and to maintain public and government support for the transition to a market economy. The primary objective of the technical assistance is to assist the government in reforming its legal and regulatory framework of social benefits to support the emergence of market-based public and private sector institutions. The contractor will be required to directly provide advisory services to support the Ukrainian government's efforts to develop its overarching social sector policies and to restructure specific social sector programs. Technical assistance also will be provided to refine and improve the existing Ukrainian program of subsidies for housing and communal services and to develop new approaches to providing social assistance to the most vulnerable members of the population. The contractor also will provide the necessary computer technical assistance and training to implement a modernized social protection database and monitoring system maintained by trained Ukrainians. The contractor will play a crucial role in the achievement of USAID s key objectives of: a redefined public sector role, increased public advocacy, improved targeting of the public sector, improved compliance with financial obligations to the government, an adequate legal and regulatory framework, and improved human capacity to provide sustainable social benefits and services. This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. This RFP, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher. The Gopher is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID Procurement and Business Opportunities from the Gopher menu. The RFP text can be downloaded by the Anonymous Files Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Logon on using the user identification of anonymous and the password is your E-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFP: pub/OP/RFP/USAID/KIEV9701/kiev9701.rfp. Receipt of the RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this amendment to ensure that it has been received from INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data error resulting from transmission or conversion processes. (0149)

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